Creating a Linux server user with specific public SSH key

Mikko Ohtamaa

10/20/23, 1:01 PM

I'd like to provision some new personal accounts on the Ubuntu Linux server. I know how to create user accounts with root, useradd and then how to manually set their authorized_keys file.

However is there a simple way to just create a specific user by giving its username and SSH public key? Passwords are not needed.

I know how to write a shell script for this myself, but it feels a bit overkill and I feel I am missing something in the user management, as this should be quite common task.

174

1 + 2

server

ssh

useradd

David

10/20/23, 1:02 PM

What version of Ubuntu are you using?

Mikko Ohtamaa

10/20/23, 1:02 PM

I am using 20.04 and 22.04.

Score:1

Ubuntu

Mikko Ohtamaa

10/20/23, 1:24 PM

Never mind, I wrote this one-liner that does the job:

(   export NEW=example && \
    export KEY="ssh-rsa AAAAB3Nz... example@example.com && \
    adduser --gecos "" --disabled-password $NEW && \
    mkdir /home/$NEW/.ssh && \
    echo $KEY > /home/$NEW/.ssh/authorized_keys && \
    chown -R $NEW:$NEW /home/$NEW/.ssh && \
    chmod 644 /home/$NEW/.ssh/authorized_keys && \
    chmod 0700 /home/$NEW/.ssh \
)

Edit the NEW username and its ssh KEY and copy-paste to terminal as root.

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